Back in September, we wrote about “The Ultimate Steal” from Microsoft because they were offering students the option to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for just $59 bucks. Considering it retails for $680, this deal is a 91% discount. At the time they said the offer would end on April 30th, but as it turns out, they extended the offer a few days and now its set to end on May 16th, a week from today. If you’ve been considering purchasing Office 2007, there’s no better time than now to do it.

The New York Times is reporting that while Microsoft says a .edu email address and a course load of at least 0.5 credits is required, the only thing Microsoft actually looks for is that .edu email address. In other words, anybody, whether you are enrolled in courses or not (alumni), will be able to snap this deal if you have a .edu address. Now here’s the thing, Microsoft says that you will have to pay the full price of the software if they find out you are not enrolled in any classes, but we’re doubtful that they will take the time to verify the status of every person who purchases a copy. Nevertheless, if you aren’t enrolled in any courses, purchase at your own risk!

And just to save some of you some time (because we know it would come up in the comments), it’s probably worth pointing out the free alternatives available like Zoho, Google Docs, or OpenOffice.org. While each of the three mentioned services offer their users with a pretty good alternative to using Office, we do have to say that Microsoft did a fantastic job with Office 2007 and the extent of what it offers can’t be found anywhere else. For $59, you can’t go wrong…